How to Build Your Resume, Pyramid Style

I love the Pyramid Style of Writing. It's a great technique for grabbing a reader's attention and quickly getting your message across. So why not use it to build your resume? After all, they say your resume has only about eight seconds to catch an employer's attention and make your "hire-me" point.

How to Use the Pyramid Style to Build Your Resume

In the Pyramid Style of Writing, you state a theme for your document in the opening of your piece. As you keep writing, you make each sentence and paragraph support that theme. It's like building a pyramid top down. You put the theme at the point of the pyramid and hold it up with layers of supporting material.

Here's how you could use the Pyramid Style of Writing to build your resume.

• At the top (the point of the pyramid), put your most important info — your name and job objective. You can take the job objective statement off later if you want but I suggest you put it at the top of your resume draft so you can refer to it while writing the rest of your resume. That objective statement will help you stay focused.

• As you move down the pyramid, write your Summary section, composed of your hardest selling points for your job objective.

• In the body of the resume pyramid is your professional experience, which substantiates your Objective and Summary sections. It contains details and achievements to back up information at the top of the page.

• The rest of your resume is the foundation: your education, community service, and other lists that support your job objective.

Every statement on your resume should be focused on the "point" of the resume — your job objective. If you write your resume with that focus, the recruiter or employer will focus on your job objective, too. And that's exactly what you want!